Travel to Machu Picchu Peru

Machu Picchu is a pre-Columbian Inca site located 8,000 feet above sea level. It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, which is 50 miles northwest of Cuzco and through which the Urubamba River flows.

Known as "The Lost City of the Incas", Machu Picchu is one of the most familiar symbols of the Inca Empire.

The Incas started building it around AD 1430 but was abandoned as an official site for the Inca rulers a hundred years later at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. Although known locally, it was largely unknown to the outside world before being brought to international attention in 1911 by Hiram Bingham, an American historian. Since then, Machu Picchu has become an important tourist attraction.

Machu Picchu was declared a Peruvian Historical Sanctuary in 1981 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. Since it was not plundered by the Spanish when they conquered the Incas, it is especially important as a cultural site and is considered a sacred place.

Machu Picchu was built in the classical Inca style, with polished dry-stone walls. Its primary buildings are the Intihuatana, the Temple of the Sun, and the Room of the Three Windows. These are located in what is known by archaeologists as the Sacred District of Machu Picchu.

In September 2007, Peru and Yale University reached an agreement regarding the return of artifacts which Hiram Bingham had removed from Machu Picchu in the early twentieth century.

The city of Cusco Peru, the ancient capital of the Incan Empire, was placed on the World Cultural Heritage List by UNESCO in 1983, and is without a doubt one of the most important destinations in Peru.

There are Incan buildings waiting for you to discover them among its cobble-stoned streets, ones like the Koricancha and the palace of Inca Roca as well as Andean Baroque structures from the Colonial Period like the Cathedral and the Church of the Company of Christ. In addition, you can visit the picturesque neighborhood of San Blas where the best artisans in the department have set up their workshops. This magical city also has an exciting nightlife with cafes, restaurants, and bars for all tastes. Just ten minutes away from the city, there are the massive walls of the Sacsayhuamán fortress, and a few kilometers from there, you find the archeological sites of Qenko, Pukapukara.

There are also the towns of Písac, Maras, Chinchero, and Ollantaytambo, which are spread throughout the Sacred Valley of the Incas, one hour from Cusco. From there, it is possible to catch the train to Machu Picchu. Another way of getting to the citadel is by following one of the Inca Trails, a spectacular network of pathways that snake their way among the snow covered mountains, rivers, and overwhelming countryside. This is one of the best trekking routes in the world, since scattered throughout it, you find remarkable archeological sites and areas rich in unique plant and animal species.

Sacsayhuaman is an Inca walled complex near the old city of Cusco. The site is part of the City of Cuzco, which was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1983.

Some believe the walls were a form of fortification, while others believe it was only used to form the head of the Puma that Sacsayhuamán along with Cuzco form when seen from above. Like much Inca stonework, there is still mystery surrounding how they were constructed. The structure is built in such a way that a single piece of paper will not fit between many of the stones. This precision, combined with the rounded corners of the limestone blocks, the variety of their interlocking shapes, and the way the walls lean inward, is thought to have helped the ruins survive devastating earthquakes in Cuzco. The longest of three walls is about 400 meters. They are about 6 meters tall. Estimated volume of stone is over 6,000 cubic meters. Estimates for the largest limestone block vary from 128 tonnes to almost 200 tonnes.

The Spanish harvested a large quantity of rock from the walls of the structure to build churches in Cuzco, which is why the walls are in perfect condition up to a certain height, and missing above that point. Sacsayhuamán is also noted for an extensive system of underground passages known as chincanas which connect the fortress to other Inca ruins within Cuzco.

On March 13, 2008, archaeologists discovered the ruins of an ancient temple in the periphery of Sacsayhuaman; it is believed to have been built by the Killke culture which occupied the site between 900 and 1200 AD.

Vince Lee is an Author Architech and explorer who has been consulted on various ancient sites that moved large megaliths. He theorized that the blocks were put into place by carving them first and then lowering them into place. This would have involved doing precise carving ahead of time to create the tight joints that are made to fit into prepared pockets existing in the wall. Then they would be towed up a ramp and above the wall where they would be placed on top of a stack of logs. Then the logs would be removed 1 at a time to lower the stones into place carefully. An experiment was done to see if this would work on a small scale; this accomplished limited success. In the event that they were unable to obtain the tight joints the first time the Incas would also have been able to lift the stones back up to correct their mistakes. They were not able to obtain as much precision as the Incas but they theorized that with more practice they could have accomplished more precise joints and done it with larger stones.

They also did several experiments in nearby Ollantaytambo to tow megalithic stones. This also led to limited success. They conducted one experiment where they tried to lower a 1 ton stone down a mountain. They lost control of this stone and it rolled down on its own. This is probably not the way the Incas did it since they would have wanted to control the transportation and this could have led to a lot of accidents. They concluded that although they had gravity on their side they had to practice to maintain control of the decent. They also did an experiment towing a megalith that may have been close to 10 tons on cobblestones. They had about 12 people behind the megalith pushing it while well over 100 people were pulling on several ropes to tow it. They succeeded in towing it at a fairly quick pace. The ancient Incas built a large road system that included 25,000 km of roads. Some of these roads were embellished with stone pavings.